Here’s how a wine salesman prepares to pretend to be a football writer on a match day.
I sit at my kitchen counter with the first coffee of the day and think about what theme is bouncing around my thick head and try to correlate those often absurd thoughts to the impending events of the day. I then type the word TODAY, just like that, at the end of the paragraph to remind myself to go back and include a final sentence about what we all just saw. That’s a clue by the way. Once or twice I’ve forgotten to do that, so if you see TODAY typed out you know I’m exhausted, sick, or just plain tired of giving West Ham another thought and I’ve forgotten to remove it.
Yet as I finish my blend of Ethiopian and Mexican coffee from my local Argentine coffee roaster I cannot think of any theme other than the gloom many of us feel. A gloom I expect to continue later today. A gloom I fear will be with us all season, possibly ending with what the people who theoretically could alter the course of history have called “Armageddon”. And of course, I was correct.
The first moment of defensive anxiety for West Ham came in the second minute when Obiang fouled Moreno, giving Liverpool a free kick from thirty yards out. The ball sailed over everyone in Claret and Blue and Firmino found himself with the ball at his feet right in front of Hart. I expected an early goal, but Hart was able to make the save.
West Ham should have taken advantage of some good luck in the ninth minute when Lanzini ran at the Liverpool defense. His attempted pass to Ayew took a deflection and floated over Klavan and Matip. Ayew was able to stay onside and run onto the ball, but instead of using his right foot he tried a shot with the side of his left and hit the outside of the post.
Is there good refereeing in the world? I mean anywhere? In the span of three minutes, Swarbrick ignored an obvious foul on Hernandez, a slightly less obvious foul on Noble, and then called a questionable foul on Obiang. I’m not pointing those incidents out as a way of saying “whoa is us, the refs hate us”. If I cared about another club I’d certainly notice similar time periods in those games. But I don’t.
You know, when you win a corner you like to think it’s to your advantage. Right? But this is West Ham. Fernandes won a corner after some decent work from Ayew. But Lanzini’s outswinger was cleared, and when Fernandes decided to commit himself to trying to beat Salah and Mane to the ball you knew it would end badly. Salah pushed the ball forward to Mane and Liverpool were off to the races, three against the lone Cresswell. An easy rolled pass back to Salah and the net looked like the Red Sea.
West Ham 0
Liverpool 1
Because I’m writing now while watching instead of putting the report together after the match is over, my head was down when the two NBC presenters announced the second goal. I was unprepared. A low cross from Salah deflected off of Noble’s shin, forcing a diving save from Hart. But the only players that followed the path of the ball wore cheese dip colored orange shirts, and Matip tapped it in.
West Ham 0
Liverpool 2
When Noble was shown a yellow card for simulation in the 37th minute, I made a mental note that it would be a small miracle if he lasted until he was subbed off. A reckless challenge leading to a second yellow leading to four or five goal drubbing felt inevitable. Along with an inability to string any passes together and a look of fear and loathing over the faces in West Ham shirts, the day felt lost with almost an hour left.
Halftime
West Ham 0
Liverpool 2
Did you know that Andy Carroll hadn’t scored a goal at The London Stadium since that Crystal Palace game last January? I didn’t. The halftime substitution made sense in that West Ham hadn’t asked any questions of a Liverpool defense that has been among the worst in the league on the road. I was just unaware that the threat of AC was so statistically remote.
West Ham got themselves and the crowd back into the game for a moment in the 56th minute when Ayew sent a long cross to Lanzini in the box. The Jewel showed lovely skill to control the ball with his chest, turned Gomez around, and flicked the ball over Mignolet.
West Ham 1
Liverpool 2
The wee bit of optimism that had swept over the home supporters lasted less than a minute. Firmino beat Reid near the top of the West Ham penalty area and slid the ball on the right to Oxlade-Chamberlain. Cresswell looked like he had watched the baseball World Series and wondered what sliding into a base felt like. It would have been nice if he had tried that on his own somewhere, not when he was responsible for marking Ox. He slid by, Ox had his first effort saved by Hart but he tucked in the rebound.
West Ham 1
Liverpool 3
The game remained wide open, and West Ham came close to closing the gap to one goal again in the 59th minute when Carroll headed the ball down to Lanzini on the left but unlike his flick minutes earlier this effort sailed high over the bar.
West Ham had a solid shout for a penalty in the 69th minute when Arnautovic sent a short cross to Hernandez is the box. Just as Chicharito went up to head the ball Moreno gave him a little shove in the back and the ball went over the cross bar. Moments later Firmino was in on goal down the right but his low shot rolled past the far post and out for a goal kick.
With less than twenty minutes to go, Bilic added Sakho and used the last of his three substitutions. So West Ham had the following players on the pitch at the same time. Hernandez, Ayew, Carroll, Arnautovic, and Sakho. Offensive? Yes. But how was the defense? Offensive. Same word, two different meanings. In the 76th, Mane ran at the West Ham defense as if they weren’t even there. He even lost the ball for a second, but easily won it back. He saw Salah alone in the box and rightly passed to him. He beat Hart with ease.
Final Score
West Ham 1
Liverpool 4
I’m not going to go over the same stuff over and over again. Here’s my summation of the day. West Ham played. West Ham lost. West Ham in my opinion are in deep trouble, top to bottom.